One of the challenges facing companies, organizations, and enterprises today is to present their customers with access to information without exploiting their resources. With this aim, call center systems have been utilized to communicate with customers. A call center is a centralized office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests. Typically, call centers are based on interactive voice response (IVR) systems that provide information and/or call routing by leading a user through a series of menu-driven voice prompts.
Other means to serve requests from customers are web sites that can be accessed through personal computers (PCs) or mobile devices. However, customers often choose to call the company for service with the intent of talking to an agent or interacting with the company via phone.
IVR systems are commonly used for automating customer service call routing and automated account information (e.g., bank account information). Users of such systems often experience problems navigating through the menu. Thus, frustrated users often abandon their quest for information and terminate the telephone call, prior to reaching the sought information. When users abandon the automated information delivery system, they typically seek a human attendant to connect with to obtain the information originally sought. This increases the demand for human agents in call centers, thereby increasing the cost of operating an automated information delivery system.
In addition, as users are required to traverse a menu tree, it is common that users become frustrated with menu-driven information delivery systems and resort to contacting a human operator. Typically, menu-driven information delivery systems do not enable the user to navigate directly to the desired information and/or service, but rather require the user to traverse a predefined path through the menu tree to the user's objective.
Further, IVR systems are not designated to provide service to disabled people, for example, as defined in Section 255 of the US Federal Law—Telecommunications Access for People with Disabilities. That is, IVR systems are not accessible by the hearing impaired and the dynamically heard menus and prompts, presented by the IVR systems, do not serve as an appropriate solution for people suffering from attention deficit disorder (ADD)/attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with severe concentration difficulties.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a solution that overcomes the deficiencies of IVR systems to improve the experience of customers interacting with call centers.